Deputy Minority Chief Whip, who is also the Member of Parliament for Banda Constituency, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim believes the 2021 population census exercise is politically motivated to favour the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2024 general elections.
According to him, the exercise has been designed in such a way by the Akufo-Addo government to place certain communities in other juridictions considered to be the strongholds of the ruling NPP.
“The reason why they are embarking on 2021 population census political is that they are doing it to create the 25 constituencies in the strongholds of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) before the 2024 general elections”, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim posited.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has scheduled the 2021 Population and Housing Census for Sunday, June 27, 2021. The census was expected to take place in 2020 but had to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The exercise, which will run till July 11, 2021, is meant to generate data that will be used in decision-making and planning for the development of the country and its citizens.
Currently, the Ghana Statistical Service is numbering various structures nationwide.
Speaking on Okay FM’s “Ade Akye Abia” Morning Show, the NDC MP opined that the intended census exercise has created problems in some communities as some chiefs have expressed their dissatisfaction about the arrangement which they believe is politically tinted.
He added that the next President might not be able to embark on a correct development plan for the country due to the wrongful implementation of the 2021 population census.
Whiles accusing the ruling NPP government of sidelining perceived NDC activists as enumerators and replacing them with NPP sympathizers, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim further asserted that the political connotation surrounding the 2021 population census has ‘killed’ the zeal of Ghanaians to fully show interest and participate in the exercise.
“There was a national engagement in the voter registration exercise but with the 2021 population census, on the quiet, we heard that the enumerators who were considered NDC members have been driven out and replaced with NPP members…the publicity is down as compared to the voter registration exercise because with the voter registration we all knew how the exercise was going to pan out, but not with this exercise”, he asserted.
